Reading Experience Database
1450-1945

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Record 17893

Reading Experience:

Evidence:
'I must tell you about my way of life, which is regular to a degree. Breakfast 8.30; during breakfast and my smoke afterwards until ten, when I begin work, I read Reformation: from ten, I work until about a quarter to one; from one until two, I lunch and read a book on Schopenhauer or one on Positivism; two to three work, three to six anything; if I am in before six, I read about Japan; six dinner and a pipe with my father and coffee until 7.30; 7.30 to 9.30, work; after that either supper and a pipe at home, or out to Simpson?s or Baxter?s: bed between eleven and twelve.'
Century: 1850-1899
Date: Until: 27 Oct 1874
Country: Scotland
Time: morning
afternoon
evening
Place: city: Edinburgh
specific address: 17 Heriot Row
   
Type of Experience (Reader):
silent aloud unknown
solitary in company unknown
single serial unknown
Type of Experience (Listener):
solitary in company unknown
single serial unknown

Reader/Listener/Reading Group:

Reader:Robert Louis Stevenson
Age Adult (18-100+)
Gender Male
Date of Birth 13 Nov 1850
Socio-economic group: Professional / academic / merchant / farmer
Occupation: Aspiring writer and intermittent law student
Religion: Church of Scotland (wavering)
Country of origin: Scotland
Country of experience: Scotland
Listeners present if any:
(e.g. family, servants, friends, workmates)
n/a
Additional comments: n/a

 

Text Being Read:

Author: unknown
Title: works on the Reformation
Genre: Other religious, History, Philosophy
Form of Text: Print: Book, Unknown
Publication details: n/a
Provenance: unknown

 

Source Information:

Record ID: 17893  
Source - Print  
  Author: Robert Louis Stevenson
  Editor: Bradford A. Booth
  Title: The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson, April 1874-July 1879
  Place of Publication: New Haven and London
  Date of Publication: 1994
  Vol: 2
  Page: 71
  Additional comments: Letter 328, To Frances Sitwell, Tuesday [27 October 1874]. Co-editor Ernest Mehew. The date in square brackets has been added by the editors

Citation: Robert Louis Stevenson, Bradford A. Booth (ed.), The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson, April 1874-July 1879 (New Haven and London, 1994), 2, p. 71, http://can-red-lec.library.dal.ca/Arts/reading/recorddetails2.php?id=17893, accessed: 25 April 2024

Additional comments:

RLS refers here to his reading of unspecified texts on the Reformation, Schopenhauer, Positivism and Japan. This purposeful cultural activity, explicitly considered by him as distinct from the carefully timed ?work? category (presumably writing and possibly studying law), would seem to be aimed at furthering his literary career by enriching his knowledge of religious history, contemporary philosophy and art. The index to Vol. 2 implies that ?to Simpson?s or Baxter?s? refers to visits to RLS?s friends Sir Walter Grindlay Simpson and Charles Baxter.

 

 

Reading Experience Database version 2.0.  Page updated: 27th Apr 2016  3:15pm (GMT)